About
Garfield Last Panel Replacements refer to a series of memes in which the last panel of Garfield comics is either replaced with a panel from another comic, or is removed. Originating from a viral Twitter post claiming that Garfield comics can be improved by cutting out the last panel, the format gained spread in 2019 and 2020 through activity of several novelty Twitter accounts.
Origin
On January 7th, 2019, Twitter user @vivaceharmony tweeted a cropped Garfield comic strip by Jim Davis originally published on February 26th, 1980. In the the post, the third panel of the comic was cropped out, with @vivaceharmony writing “garfield comics can be substantially improved by cropping off the third panel” (original comic and the tweet shown below, left and right). The tweet received over 4,400 retweets and 15,600 likes in two years.
The tweet was widely circulated online in the following months. On February 3rd, 2019, Redditor A_Magic_Potato reposted the tweet, gaining over 10,000 upvotes in six months. On the same day, Redditor huntermunts created /r/2panelgarfield subreddit for the purpose of posting cropped Garfield comics (examples shown below).
Spread
On August 26th, 2019, comic artist Manuel Alvarez created novelty Twitter account @GarfieldPipe, posting random Garfield comic strips with the last panel replaced with the last panel of the Garfield comic originally published on July 27th, 1978, known as “Garfield Pipe Strip” (original strip and meme examples shown below).
In the following months, the novelty account went viral online. On October 17th, 2019, AV Club posted an article about the account. As of October 14th, 2020, the account had over 32,100 followers.
In 2019 and 2020, the trend was continued with the creation of novelty Twitter accounts @DabGarfield (panel created based on 11/03/2017 and 11/19/2017 strips), @yeetgarf (Garfield Thrown Out the Window, panel from 03/29/1981 strip) and @flatgarf (Deflated Garfield, panel from 03/24/19993 strip). As of October 14th, 2020, the accounts had over 2,900 followers, 50,400 followers and 26,600 followers, respectively.
Various Examples
Search Interest
Know Your Meme Store
External References
Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/garfield-last-panel-replacements